A weekend of refunds costs Paddy Power over £130,000

It’s been a painful weekend for Paddy Power. And not just because he spent eight hours in the sun on Saturday without realising he’d actually applied mayonnaise rather than sun-cream. Damn you Hellmann’s with your convenient but easily mistake-able easy-squeeze packaging!

It all started on Saturday night. As Taylor’s Sky (Trap 4) finished 4th in the English Greyhound Derby, we refunded all losing single stakes on him thanks to our Box Clever Money-Back Special. That meant a refund of £20,000 to Paddy Power customers.

It didn’t get any better for Paddy’s bank balance soon after. Carl Froch gave Lucien Bute the vicious type of beating you normally only see when Naomi Campbell’s assistant brings her the wrong type of latte. As the Cobra wrapped it up in the fifth round and as that was comfortably short of the 12 rounds distance, we refunded over £50,000 in losing Winning Round and Grouped Winning Round single bets.

There was no respite on Sunday either. First up came the Monaco Grand Prix. Overtaking around the streets of Monte Carlo is harder than teaching Michael Schumacher the rules of the road and it proved to be the case. Mark Webber began the race in pole position and after 78 laps and some hectic pit stops, he narrowly took the chequered flag ahead of Nico Rosberg. It meant our Money-Back Special had clicked and Paddy had to refund over £25,000 in losing outright bets on Rosberg to win the race.

It was the same old story when it came to the more literal version of horse power. The Irish Guineas meeting in the Curragh was the highlight of the weekend’s racing. The Paddy Power Handicap was one of the high class contests on the card and we knew we’d be refunding by virtue of our ‘money back if your horse finishes second’ offer. It was expected, but that didn’t make it any less painful for Paddy as the well backed 13/2 shot, Royal Diamond finished second, prompting another refund of just under £25,000. Nice compensation for backers of the horse who were narrowly disappointed within the shadow of the post.

The RaboDirect Pro12 Final added to the feeling Paddy had just done 80 minutes against the Leinster pack. Sean Cronin crossed the whitewash for the first try of the game and as he’s very much a forward, it means a refund on all losing tryscorer bets on the match. That’s another £10,000 back in the pockets of Paddy Power punters.